Composting:  Nature's Recycling Program
Organic materials (grass, leaves, bush trimmings, etc.) decompose into a rich soil enhancing material called humus. This material can be used to enrich the soil throughout your yard, reducing the need for fertilizer. With the average yard producing more than 600 pounds of yard materials per year, composting is much better for you and the environment than bagging them and placing them out for collection.

Compost can:

• Help reduce waste and the problems associated with collecting and processing yard materials.
• Suppress plant diseases and pests.
• Reduce or eliminate the need for chemical fertilizers.
• Promote higher yields of agricultural crops.
• Facilitate reforestation, wetlands restoration, and habitat revitalization efforts by amending contaminated, compacted, and marginal soils.
• Cost-effectively remediate soils contaminated by hazardous waste.
• Remove solids, oil, grease, and heavy metals from stormwater runoff.
• Capture and destroy 99.6 percent of industrial volatile organic chemicals (VOCs) in contaminated air.
• Provide cost savings of at least 50 percent over conventional soil, water, and air pollution remediation technologies, where applicable.

Composting Food Scraps
Due to problems with rodents and other animals, the Baltimore County Code prohibits composting of food scraps in compost piles or bins. As a result, many residents are left asking the question, "How can I reduce the volume of food scraps going out with my trash each week?"

The two options available to residents are vermicomposting and soil incorporation. Choose from the links that follow to learn more about which option is right for you. Either way, you will be making a difference by keeping your food scraps out of the trash!

Vermicomposting offers County residents a beneficial and legal way to compost food scraps, help the environment, and create a valuable byproduct for use in gardens and houseplants.

Soil incorporation provides a very simple, legal alternative for County residents to compost small amounts of food scraps.

Revised September 10, 2009